When Bafta nominee Joe Murtagh learned about the Magdalene Laundries, he realised he had to tell their tale. Here, he explains how he wrote new thriller The Woman in the Wall, starring Ruth Wilson
At a wedding, a priest sings The Well Below the Valley, an old Irish ballad about an abused woman accused of infanticide. The camera pans around the room, lands on women of all ages listening with an unspoken understanding. Moments later, a young woman is lured away and raped by her cousin. But this is not the only crime. Not the one that will merit punishment, at least. That comes immediately after, when the young woman, Margaret, played by Anne-Marie Duff, tells her friend what has happened. Margaret then watches in horror as the news slowly spreads around the room of wedding guests in unheard whispers. The men all begin to glare at her. Not at her attacker – at her. The next day, Margaret is sent away to a Magdalene Laundry.
This is the opening to Peter Mullan’s brilliant and appropriately harrowing 2002 film, The Magdalene Sisters, and it would serve as my introduction to the Magdalene Laundries. Despite growing up in an Irish family in England, before seeing this film I had no idea what a Magdalene Laundry was. I have since learned that I wasn’t the only one. Far from it.
